Purpose v. Goal: Story Always Comes First

 

Despite what the dictionary says, purpose and goal are not always the same. This is especially true when writing fiction. Educating my audience is my purpose, but telling a good story is my goal.

I recently purchased a novel from a local author. The story takes place in the region, and the premise sounded good. But when I started reading it, I didn’t get far.

The book begam with a lecture on the social history of the area. I made it through the first chapter and debated whether I should read on. Maybe the author had finished her sermon and was ready to move on to the story. But when I started the second chapter, it was more of the same, so I gave up. The book may have had the perfect plot and told a wonderful story, but I’ll never know.

It’s an easy trap to fall into, though.

I write because I’m addicted to it. I can’t not write. The genre is more of a choice, however. I write middle grade historical novels because I believe it is important for today’s children to know their history. So my purpose is to educate them about their country’s past. But my readers want a story, not a lecture, and if they get bored they will put the book down without learning anything I am trying to teach them. Without a good story, my purpose is lost.

When I wrote Desert Jewels, I wanted to show everything that the Japanese Americans on the West Coast went through during World War II when they were forced to leave their homes and live in internment camps. Unfortunately, that was unrealistic. There were some events and circumstances that I couldn’t weave into the story without bogging it down, so I had to leave them out. I probably still left in a few things I shouldn’t have, but hopefully the story is strong enough that my readers forgive me those slips. And I was able to provide enough of the flavor of those camps to give readers an understanding of what happened there.

By the time I sent Creating Esther to my middle-grade beta readers, I was doing better. However, I still wanted to show everything about how my Ojibwe protagonist lived before she went to a white-run boarding school, and that was unrealistic, too. Fortunately, this time I had the sense to ask my beta readers to point out those passages that sounded like lessons, and they did. The final version either reworked those parts or left them out.

Each beta reader questionnaire since then has asked that same question. I seem to have learned my own lesson, because the answer is usually “none.” When they do point something out, however, I find a way to make it flow with the story. If I can’t, it goes into the trash bin.

Fiction isn’t a textbook or a sermon. If it is written that way, readers will put it down. And they should.

As I said at the beginning of this post, education is my purpose, but telling a good story is my goal.

So if you want your readers to learn something new, put story first.